England learns how to cook
by Snoring Tiger
Summary: England feels disheartened when he fails cooking again and decides to listen to the advice of Gordon Ramsey. How well does his cooking actually come out though?


England groaned. _Would he ever get the hang of this? _How hard could it be anyway? All you had to do was mix all of the ingredients and shove them into the oven until the dough had risen enough, thus forming the perfect set of cupcakes that he could happily enjoy while watching the telly or doing his paperwork. So why had all of his mixture turned a putrid colour of dark yellow and all smelt like toxin? He followed every step to the letter, so what went wrong?

"Stupid frog, telling me I couldn't make anything from scratch," England scowled, tugging on his striped apron and pulling it off, tossing it angrily onto the floor and treading on it, "I just can't cook because he's jinxed me, that must be the reason!"

Placing oven mitts on his hands and opening the oven, England continued to grumble about how France was to blame for this mess. Tossing the useless food into the bin, he decided to admit defeat.

This was his fifth attempt at making cupcakes, after all. A man has to know his limits.

"Guess I'll do what I always do to boost my morale," England shuffled out of the kitchen and moved into the living room. Sinking onto his couch and reaching for the remote, he flicked through multiple channels until he found the one he was looking for.

"_What the bloody hell do you think you're doing? That's not how you serve tacos! This dish is a disgrace! Get the fuck out of my kitchen and never even think of showing your face around here, do you hear me?"_

Ah, Gordon Ramsey. How England loved the man's tactics, from breaking down his chef's hopes and dreams, to mercilessly insulting their culinary and then evicting them from their job. England secretly wished to meet the man one day. He was sure that Gordon Ramsey would be able to help him cook.

Well maybe he didn't need to meet the chef... maybe just having his voice blaring from the telly was enough! If he had the encouragement from just the shouting, maybe somehow his cooking would improve! Not that it needed much improvement anyway, just a little tweaking...

"I can do this!" England cried out, reminiscent to that of a battle cry, as he turned up the television's volume to full blast and rushed back into the kitchen to pick up his apron from the floor and put it on, his morale boosted once more. He pulled out various pots and pans from different compartments and cupboards (not that he knew what all of them were for, mind you; one of them had holes for God's sake!) and attempted to carry all of the contents of his fridge out to the kitchen island, where he dumped all of the food.

"Right, what can I make with all of this?" England peered closely at the food, almost as if he was interrogating it with his eyes. There was certainly a variety of ingredients- tomatoes, carrots, chocolate spread, ground beef, celery, cheese, lettuce, ham, a jar of olives, marshmallows, taco shells and oddly enough, a packet of strong mints. Honestly, he did not have a damn clue as to what to make out of all of these miscanellious ingredients. Maybe a stew?

"_For fuck's sake, your tacos are worse than the previous twat's, and that's saying something!"_

Hmm. Maybe Gordon Ramsey had a point. England realised slowly that he had all of the ingredients to make a taco, well at least he thought he did.

"Let's see here...Taco shells...ground beef...cheese...tomatoes...possibly lettuce...and I'm sure I have some green taco sauce somewhere? Yup, there it is!" England pulled out a bottle of green taco sauce and placed it next to all of the other ingredients. Rolling up his sleeves, he determinedly muttered "Okay, let's see how to make this!"

After thinking for a few seconds, England decided it would be wise to start with the ground beef. That was the main filling inside of the taco after all. He picked up the packet of beef and read the instructions and information. Thankfully he realised that the beef had already been properly cooked before and all he had to do was heat up the meat. Although he wanted to completely successfully cook he didn't want to give himself food poisoning from the meat. England opened the packet and dumped the beef into one of the large bowls and placed said bowl into the microwave, set at the highest temperature.

"Five minutes will work, won't it?" England muttered to himself, twiddling around on the dials of the microwave.

"_Stop messing around with things you don't understand how they work, wanker!"_

How awfully fitting.

England reluctantly removed his hands from the microwave and decided to take the passive approach of simply watching the beef heat up. After five minutes, he took the beef out of the microwave and placed a fork in the centre of the beef before bringing the fork to his lips.

"Fuck!" England cursed, licking his bottom lip frantically. It was hot alright. England peered into the bowl and had to refrain himself from physically expressing his joy. For once, his food hadn't come out a funny colour and didn't look like it was about to disintegrate with a simple prod from a fork!

England then sighed. It was pretty pathetic of him to get happy over something so simple.

Okay, now the meat was done. What was next?

"It would make sense...to put the beef in the taco shells like so..." England mumbled, retrieving a spoon and slowly placing the beef into the taco shells which was more of a feat than he would have imagined, considering the fact that the beef would keep slipping out either end. Somehow though, after accidently putting too much pressure on some shells and breaking them, he had five intact tacos in the making.

Next were the tomatoes. England glared viciously at the innocent tomatoes.

_Oh he had experience with these little buggars, alright._ The juice that would always get into England's eyes whenever he would cut them, their squishiness which made them harder to hold and the pungent smell of tomatoes made England grow to detest them. Still, it was important for the taco and he had to try and cook something right. Maybe now he could get over his rivalry with the inanimate objects.

England held down one of the tomatoes firmly and instantly chopped the knife into the tomato, spraying the strong juice into his eyes.

Well that turned out well.

"ARGH!" He ran over to the sink and turned on the tap, splashing water into his eyes to get rid of the burn. After a few seconds all of the juice was gone.

"Stupid tomatoes, holding a grudge against me," England grumbled as he rubbed his face with the kitchen towel. Surely this was not how cooking went for the greatest of chefs? England decided to strain his ears to listen to the television to hear if Gordon Ramsey would offer more conveniently timed advice.

"_You're a waste of fucking space! These are NOT enchiladas; those are burnt pieces of human failure!"_

Sadly not. Turning back to his food, he realised with joy that the tomato had successfully been cut in half and that he had two halves of a tomato.

Well that was a start, wasn't it? England grinned and clapped his hands out of joy. Today was really going well for him! He did have to take this more seriously, if he was to continue cooking without any incidents. He walked over to the living room table and plucked his reading glasses from the table and put them on, thus shielding his eyes from any extra juice.

England picked up the knife and began to chop one half of the tomato in small pieces, his glasses effectively getting ruined in the process. His sacrifice paid off though, when after chopping the tomato completely multiple times he had enough small pieces to sprinkle over his tacos, which he did hesitantly. Taking off his glasses, he inspected his art and nodded in satisfaction.

All that was left to deal with was the cheese and possibly the lettuce. England shrugged, brining the lettuce forward. He might as well, the tacos looked slightly empty as they currently were. How does one shred lettuce though? It would take too long with a knife and if he used a blender then he would get lettuce juice.

"_Why the fuck did you use a blender for this? That's not how you grate food, twat!"_

Well then.

England took solace in the fact that he wasn't the only one who had the same thought. He decided to tune in to the conveniently times television advice.

"_Use a knife, you lazy fucker!"_

England rubbed his temples and sighed. One day he would tell America to invent a machine to shred lettuce-then again, the boy would most likely go over the top. Either way, he still had to shred some of the lettuce leaves.

He pulled off three of the leaves from the lettuce and as he was about to bring the knife down on them, he had an epiphany.

Rushing to his pile of culinary devices, England retrieved his cheese grater and picked up the cheese as well. He grabbed his block of cheese and also held the leaves in front of the cheese so they would get grated at the same time.

"I, The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, am one smart chap," England muttered as he watched with glee as the shredded lettuce along with the cheese fell into the bowl England was holding the ingredients over. Soon enough, he had his shredded lettuce and cheese mixed in the bowl, and had more than plenty for his tacos.

"Jolly good," England smiled, using his handy-dandy spoon to once again pour the mixture on top of each taco. All that was left now was to put the green taco sauce over them.

He picked up the bottle and cheerfully poured the contents of the bottle on each one, resulting in each taco drowning in green taco sauce.

England had to take a step back to admire his beautiful creations. Nothing was burnt, no instruments had been set on fire and his house was in one piece. That was a pretty impressive feat.

He had to document evidence of this; he had to show the world that he could cook! England rushed upstairs to get his camera.

Unknown to England, America actually was in the neighbourhood and was planning on visiting England for a short while. America knocked on the door and when he heard no reply he just kicked the door in. It's not like England wasn't used to having his door kicked down by drunk Frenchmen or angry nations anyway.

"England? Hello?" America called out. All he could hear was the buzzing of the television, and it sounded like an angry man was on at the moment.

"_Get out of here, stop ruining my fucking life! You worthless piece of shit!"_

Ignoring the television, America walked into the kitchen and a beautiful sight met him. Tacos laid there in all their glory, simply begging to be eaten. America sniffed the air. Yup, they were fresh. His mouth began to water and his eyes turned into stars.

"America? Is that you?" England asked, walking down the stairs whilst carrying a digital camera.

"Oh hi England! Man, those were some tasty tacos you had there!" America laughed, wiping his mouth.

Silence.

"How...how many of the tacos did you eat, America?"

"All of them!"

A strangled moan came from England.

"You fucking wanker, I spent ages making those damn tacos and now nobody will believe I can cook!" England shouted, moving closer to America and giving the most threatening look he could. It seemed to work as now America was now mentally planning a way out of the house and tried to wriggle away from England's sight.

"Wait...you made them? There's no way you did them, they were too good!"

"CHEEKY BASTARD!"

America laughed as he opened the kitchen window and did a barrel roll onto the garden before hastily getting up and jumping over England's garden fence.

"Don't ever come back here you brat!" England shouted, slamming the window shut. He sighed as he put all of the food and cutlery back in their places. Whether it be tomorrow, next week or even next year, he would show the world that he could cook!

Until then, watching a bit of Gordon Ramsey sounded ideal.

* * *

_And _this _story was the one I decided to write for a friend of mine, Curious-svy. I swear, I'm never writing about cooking any more after this!_

-_Snoring Tiger_


End file.
